Wind Star Costa Rica March 4-11 - Review

[Leejnd4]

Uh oh! I just noticed that in my description of the horseback trip in Quepos, I mentioned that we stripped off our clothes to swim in the waterfall. It's too late for me to edit this, but I should mention that those of us who did this had BATHING SUITS on! I swear! I thought I should clear that up for anyone who might be thinking we went on a ship-sponsored skinny-dipping spree. ;)

[cmlva]

Great job LeeAnne. Made me feel like I just got back. Although we went on different excursions at each stop, we both enjoyed the outings we signed up for. I did however find the extra days on land everybit as magical as the cruise. LaPaz and Arenal were areas and experiences I fell in love with. Thanks for the review. I'm sure it will be helpful to those yet to go on Windstar Costa Rica. As for me, I'll read it every so often and remember all the fun we had.

Charlie

[Leejnd4]

Thanks Charlie! I read it myself last night, and all the memories came flooding back. It was a magical vacation! This isn't really a review, it's more like a journal that I kept for my own memories, but I'm glad that others can enjoy it.

 

I just can't believe it took me this long to post it! Sheesh. I actually do have more -- I need to edit the rest of it. Not much left of the cruise -- just the beach barbecue, and then I did some snorkeling afterwards. But I did also write up what we did on debarkation day, which was go to an amazing place that offers all kinds of adventures, like zip-line tours, horseback riding, and ATV tours. We did the zip-line and ATV. As soon as I've scanned it for errors I'll post it.

 

One thing I'll never forget was that last night -- remember when we were complaining that they hadn't played "THE SONG"? And then we demanded that they do so? I'll never forget standing on the pool deck with all my new friends, listening to that stirring music as we sailed away.

 

Well I hope you and Barbara are doing well! Keep in touch! :)

[KatWag]

What a treat to find the review. Thanks for taking the time to write it and share it with us.

 

I have a question for you. I was hoping to convince my parents to join us on this cruise. They are in their mid to late sixties, but Dad had hip replacement surgery on both hips 2 years ago. The "wet landings" description made me a bit nervous that this trip wouldn't be possible for them. How hard was it to get out of the zodiac? Did you have anyone on the cruise with any physical challenges? Were they OK?

 

Thanks!

 

Kathy

[Leejnd4]

So glad you liked it!

 

To answer your question, there were several elder folks on the cruise, some who moved rather slowly, although I did not see anyone who was seriously mobility challenged. One thing to keep in mind is that there are no elevators on this ship, so if you can't negotiate stairs you will not be able to leave your cabin! This is not a cruise that would be appropriate for someone who is wheelchair-bound.

 

But if your Dad can get around pretty well, then he should be fine. For the most part, the wet landings should be fine too. There is plenty of help both getting in and getting out. You climb into the zodiac pretty easily from a platform on the ship -- no more difficult than any other tender. When the zodiac pulls up to land, there are some local boys who will yank it up onto the sand. You then just have to spin around on the edge and hop out. It's a "wet" landing because the boat is still in the surf, and it's likely your feet will get wet. But there are people there to help you get out. Of course, if you do like me and just hop out from the back into waist-deep water, you are going to get REALLY wet! ;)

 

The only place where it might be a little bit of trouble is Drakes Bay. The surf can get a little rough here, so they make you wear a life preserver on the zodiac, which they don't for the other wet landings (they have stacks of them at the platform, you don't have to bring yours from the cabin). The landing can be a little rougher too, with some wave action. But like I said, the boys there pull the boat up on the sand as much as possible, and will help anyone who needs assistance getting out.

 

Hope that helps!

[nancyrg]

LeeAnn:

thank you for posting this great review

now i can better plan our days in port

 

can hardly wait!!

 

Nancy

[cmlva]

Nancy:

The "wet" landings shouldn't be a problem for your dad at all. The main thing to keep in mind is that the Costa Rica cruise excursions is almost ALL rainforest hikes and such. That could be an issue. I personally think it would be a great cruise to take a parent on - especially if they foot the bill :)

Charlie

[yogagal47]

thanks for such a detailed account of your cruise. this should prove helpful when planning our excursions on the dec 30th trip. i might try to do scuba lessons at home first since my husband is certified already(i am a bit phobic about diving ). if not i will just do snorkeling and my son can dive with him.

[Leejnd4]

Not much left, but I had to edit for spelling/grammar, so here's the final part. Most of this is what we did on the day we disembarked, but I want to make sure that everyone knows what's available nearby!

 

Picking up where I left off, during the dive...

 

So I got to do my very first dive in a place that most beginners don’t get to go…and it was FANTASTIC! I took to diving immediately, and had no trouble at all with my ears, my breathing, clearing my mask or anything. Charlie struggled a bit with his ears at first, but worked it out and then continued along with us. The sea life was abundant, colorful and amazing! We all stayed together as a group, rather than splitting up into beginners and advanced, so we ended up going to some really cool places. The channel was particularly awesome – it was a narrow passage between rocks, and you had to kind of hold yourself in place while the current was moving against you, then it would switch direction and SWOOSH forward and you just let go and run with it!

 

We saw amazing sea life. Brilliant colorful fish, moray eels, bright blue sponges, bizarre creeping starfish. I really felt at home underwater, and I felt like I could have stayed there for hours, just staring at the abundant life down there. Unfortunately, the air supply only lasts so long, so after about 45 minutes it was time to go.

 

On the way back to the ship, I learned that Crispin and Michelle were doing the 10:30 dive strictly for one elder gent who’d struggled a bit during class. I thought it was so wonderful of them to be willing to go out on a dive for one person, since the policy is that these kinds of things would be cancelled without enough participation. But they wanted to make sure that everyone got what they wanted, and they were a bit concerned for him, so they worked it out to give him his own dive.

 

But he only needed one of them to supervise him, and both were going, so they offered to bring me along if I wanted to go. You BET I did! As it turned out, the other diver had had enough after about ten minutes, so Crispin spent the entire rest of dive with me, which lasted almost an hour. It was unbelievable! Crispin knows what to look for, and managed to find the most amazing sea life, much of it hidden in crevasses I never would have seen. We saw one moray eel that had to be a good 2 feet long, and Crispin pointed out that he was so old he had no teeth left!

 

The ship did its move during the time that we were out on the second dive, so by the time we were done with the dive, we zodiaced to the ship at its new anchorage off Tortuga Island. I freshened up and went up to catch the tender to the beach for the famous beach barbecue. This was the only time we ever had to actually wait for anything – for unknown reasons it just seemed to take a really long time to get the tenders started. We waited for about 45 minutes before we finally got on a tender.

 

Once we got onshore, they had the whole beach barbecue thing pretty much ready. And THIS was the BEST meal of the entire cruise! I described this in part 1, so I won’t go into any more detail, except to say that we had fabulous company to go along with the delicious food. We sat with the couple we’d had lunch with in Quepos, along with a couple of their friends, and had wonderful conversation.

 

After filling up with so much wonderful food, all we could do for a while was relax on the sand and soak up the heat. But I was still so entranced with my earlier undersea experience that after I rested for a while I donned my snorkeling gear and headed back out. Crispin happened to be taking several folks out on the zodiac to a little island just offshore for some snorkeling, so I joined them. Okay, it wasn’t nearly as intimate an experience with the sea life as diving, but I still got to see some cool fish and stuff.

 

I probably spent more time in the ocean on this day than I ever have in my life!

 

 

Puerto Caldera

 

Okay, so this isn’t going to be an actual review of Puerto Caldera, because there’s apparently not much to see in Puerto Caldera itself. But if anyone is planning on spending the night in the area and has the rest of debarkation day available, there is a GREAT place to go that isn’t too far.

 

Our friends Bill & Sandy picked us up at the ship at about 9:00 am, and we headed straight to Miramar, to the Costa Rica Adventure Park at the Hotel Vista Golfo on Finca Daniel, which was less than an hour drive. Of all the adventures we experienced on our Costa Rican vacation, this day was by far the most spectacular. Here is the link to their website:

 

http://finca-daniel.com/index.htm

 

We hadn’t done the zip-line tour that the ship offered, because we knew that we were going to do this one post-cruise based on the recommendation of our friends. They’d had some other friends of theirs do the same cruise a couple weeks before us, and they did both the ship’s zip-line and this one, and they apparently said that the one at Miramar far surpassed the other one. All I know is that it was one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my life!

 

Everything starts from the hotel, which is a lovely little place sitting way high on a mountain with forever views, all the way to the ocean. That makes the zip-lines even more breathtaking, as not only are you high up in the trees, but high on a mountain where you can see for many miles beyond. They have two different zip-line tours – one with 25 cables across waterfalls that includes a horseback ride that takes four hours, and a shorter one with 11 cables. We did the 11 cable one, since we wanted to do the ATV tour later. They did a great job in terms of safety, always keeping you hooked onto a cable when on the platforms, and telling you exactly when to start braking. The highlight is the last cable, billed as the longest cable in Costa Rica. It’s an amazing ride – it’s about a good half-mile long, from the top of a hill above the hotel to a platform below. You zip right past the balcony restaurant of the hotel so that friends can get great pictures of you zooming by. Our friends shot video, which upon review shows that the cable ride lasts more than a minute! And you don’t start breaking on this one until right before it ends, so you are riding at full-out speed. What a heart-pumper!

 

After the zip-line tour we had lunch at the hotel restaurant, where we enjoyed another delicious meal of casados, and then we went for our four hour ATV tour. This was truly indescribable. During this event I just kept thinking that it’s not normal to have so MANY superlative experiences in such a short time – it was sensory overload!

 

Although the area has been enjoyed by dirt bikers and ATV’ers for some time, the hotel just started offering them, so they have a whole fleet of brand spanking new Honda ATV’s. Charlie and I had two guides, one a young Costa Rican who looked for all the world like a Latino Jake Gyllanhall, including the vivid blue eyes, and another older gentleman originally from Germany. Our German friend rode an ATV in front of us, and “Jake” (can’t remember his name now) rode behind on a dual sport bike, so we were well cared for.

 

Before you head out on the tour, they take you to a little training course they have set up, where you take your ATV over rocks, little bridges and other obstacles. They do this because you need to learn that it would practically take a crane to tip one of these things over, no matter how off balance you get! During training you run the tires on one side up over these rocks so that you are listing waaaay sideways, but you have to learn NOT to put your foot out since you will not tip over, and you could get injured. It takes a few tries, but after a couple runs you learn that these things can literally ride over enormous boulders and they’ll just keep on going. I remember thinking that nothing we would encounter out there on the road would be this difficult or hairy…but I was wrong!

 

Once we finished practicing on the course we headed up the mountain along dirt and gravel roads, towards a village up in the cloud forest. This entire region only HAS dirt roads – there are no paved roads anywhere nearby! It was unbelievably picturesque – more views for miles in all directions, across to the mountains one way, and over the land to the sea in the other. We got to one ancient road that’s been used by the villagers for centuries – it’s extremely steep, and over the centuries has been pounded down by horse traffic to just sheer rock and boulders. It’s not possible to take a car on this road – it climbs at an impossible angle, and is littered with huge rocks that the ATV’s just bounded over. WOW!

 

Once we reached the mountaintop village, populated by surprisingly lovely mountain homes and very friendly, waving people, we stopped at a little café which just seemed so incongruous out here in the middle of nowhere without a proper road in sight. We enjoyed some fruit juices, and were offered a snack as part of the tour, but we were still full from lunch. They have some chalet-type accommodations dotting the grounds, which I was thinking would be a really lovely, romantic place to stay for a relaxing vacation. There is also a nature path that winds its way for a good mile through the verdant, luxuriant forest there. The path is well laid out and marked with signs along the way giving you information about the various plants, flowers and trees. Given that this is up in a cloud forest, often this spot is socked in with clouds and fog. But this day it was unusually clear and sunny, with just a few thick, eerie wisps of mist clinging to the lush treetops.

 

Then it was back on the ATV’s for more amazing riding through the winding dirt pathways and roads, some over the tops of mountains where it was just impossible not to want to stop and gaze forever, others through thick forests. We even saw a toucan flitting among the trees. At one point we crossed a river, which really surprised me – you can actually take these things directly through water! That was fun – the water was up to our feet, and the river was full of huge rocks that we had to bound over while splashing through the water.

 

At the end of this tour we were both covered in dust – when I took my sunglasses off and looked in the mirror, I had two big white circles in a practically black face!

 

This entire day was so full of astonishing sights and sensations that I could barely sleep that night, trying to commit it all to memory.

 

Well that is the end of my review. In brief summary, overall this is a fantastic vacation for active people who enjoy all the luxuries of cruising, as well as the wonders of nature and the excitement of new adventures in an indescribably beautiful, peaceful, and magnificent country.